Greta Thunberg, milkshake duck

Is Peter Thiel a fed?

Peter Thiel made billions of dollars working closely with the federal government, selling technologies like Palantir at massive profits. Now, there’s the suggestion that Thiel’s ties to the government may be a lot closer than previously thought — a bombshell report in Business Insider alleges that Thiel has worked as a confidential human source for the FBI starting in 2021, likely about foreign involvement in Silicon Valley. Per Insider, Thiel was recruited by controversial far-right activist Charles Johnson.

Thiel’s political involvement has scaled back in recent months; in 2022, he batted 0.500 in getting his former employees elected to the United States Senate, helping get J.D. Vance in and failing to get Blake Masters across the finish line.

Masters, however, is reportedly eyeing multiple House races in Arizona for 2024, if he doesn’t end up making his long-rumored campaign for Senate official because of Kari Lake’s dominance. Thiel’s involvement now that he works with the feds who Masters rails against is an open question…

Stormy Daniels, auteur

As her former fling Donald Trump dips in and out of the nation’s courthouses, for, among other things, hush money payments, how is Stormy Daniels keeping busy? By making the jump from directing porn to directing mainstream cinema.

“Day 5 of my mainstream thriller I’m directing is a wrap…so much good stuff today!” she tweeted yesterday. “More days to go but so happy with what we have shot so far and so impressed with all of the cast, especially the child actors!”

Cockburn, who had his tarot read by Daniels back in December, is thrilled for her thriller. Hopefully he gets an invite to the premiere at… Sundance? TriBeCa? Venice? Who knows what the future holds, other than Stormy of course.

Greta Thunberg, milkshake duck

Terminally online people will understand the term “milkshake duck.” For those who live their lives in the real world, a milkshake duck refers someone or something that is at first beloved then later found to be problematic, explained in a viral tweet:

Well, Cockburn was amused to find one of the great milkshake ducks of all time come from our favorite autistic child, Greta Thunberg.

It seems in Greta’s zeal to show her support for Palestinians, she accidentally included an antisemitic stuffed animal. Don’t you hate it when that happens to you? Cockburn is always embarrassed when he inadvertently includes antisemitic imagery laying around his house and it somehow finds its way into tweets supporting groups dedicated to wiping out a Jewish state. Happens to the best of us!

In the bedroom with the Gipper

Piper Laurie, the three-time Oscar nominee whose film career spanned over seven decades, passed away this past weekend at ninety-one. Laurie was best known for her roles in The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God — and was iconic as Catherine Martell in Twin Peaks. But a decade ago, the actress raised eyebrows with her account of losing her virginity to Ronald Reagan when she was just eighteen.

“It was my first love affair but our first night in the bedroom together was completely without grace,” the actress revealed in her 2011 memoir Learning to Live Out Loud.

At the time of their alleged relationship Reagan, then thirty-nine, was playing Piper’s father in the 1950 film Louisa — though his intentions were far from fatherly. He invited Laurie out to dinner but ended up cooking her a meal at his home before the evening turned intimate. “I was looking forward to a glamorous, romantic night rather than hamburgers at his home,” she said, though the Gipper did get permission from Laurie’s mother before asking her out.

However bad the meal was, Piper remembers the sex being even worse. “He made sure I was aware of the length of time he had been ‘ardent.’ It was forty minutes,” she said. “And he told me how much the condom cost.”

Sensing Laurie was less than pleased about losing her virginity to the great communicator, Reagan, a “show-off” in bed, insulted her. “There’s something wrong with you. You should have had many orgasms by now — after all this time. You’ve got to see a doctor,” he said.

RIP.

And now, polygamy…

After a dark week of headlines, Cockburn was crying out for some light relief. He came by it courtesy of the Daily Beast, with their offering, “Polygamous US Navy Vet With Top-Secret Clearance Caught Running Guns to Niger.”

From the Beast: “According to the Regional Security Officer at the American Embassy in Niger, Otaru is currently married to two women and has two children with one of them,” the affidavit states. “One resides at his residence in Ashburn, Virginia and the second wife resides in Nigeria. Otaru told his wife who resides in Ashburn that he [would] never return [to the US], according to an interview that the RSO conducted with the Consular Officer at the American Embassy, Niger.”

It gets worse: Otaru’s wives learned about each other thanks to the Embassy’s investigation:

On September 8, 2017, US authorities in Niger interviewed one of Otaru’s two wives, who had traveled to the country three months earlier from Virginia, the affidavit says. The RSO told her that another woman had gone to see Otaru at the jail, and that she also claimed to be married to the man she was calling her husband.

“[Otaru’s US wife] replied that she always suspected that [Otaru] was having an extramarital affair but could not believe that he would potentially marry another individual,” the affidavit states. She said Otaru is a Christian and that polygamy is not acceptable. “[Otaru’s US wife] stated that she wanted to return with her two children to the United States but that she has no money.”

Cockburn wishes to commiserate with Mr. Otaru on his rotten luck. Isn’t it awful when the government gets in the way…